Lego 10188 Death Star

Build - Level 2

The heavy building starts and boy did I look forward to it. It starts off with making the floor of the next level. This was solidly made with 3 layers of plate as shown below. Pretty much like a kueh lapis cake.

The floor has one quadrant empty and is ringed by a bunch of bricks attached in a SNOT. I have a tendency to keep knocking into the 3-piece sucker all the time breaking it off since it is attached simply by studs.

Next up are the different quadrants on this level. Actually not really quadrants as there are 5 sections to this level but some really take up a quadrant. The first one I want to focus is one that is empty. I guess this represents the unfinished part of the Death Star before the rebels blew it to kingdom come. It looks very spacious indeed.

Next up is the all famous trash compactor scene. The wall of this closes up together but not in parallel but more like from a V-shape position to parallel by means of technic elements. You can see on the upper left the rod to pull to close the walls.

Here is a shot with the door closed and the trash thrown in. At this stage the Dianoga is not in there yet.

Some people may not remember this scene but before Obi Wan confronted Darth man, he went to power down the tractor beam. This replicates the scene. The blue round 2x2 bricks are inverted and represent the "beam of power".

Now when we pull one of the levers, it falls down and the tractor beam is offline. This is a fun play feature.

Next is this area which I am not sure what it represents but it features a cannon that actually fires. It is spring loaded making it one of the more powerful ones out there. Lego has a tendency to make those flick fire missiles which are kind of weak. Give me this or the cannons any day.

Not sure what this quadrant represents but it looks like some repair bay. To make up for its less than interesting Star Wars background, the lift in the foreground is down...

and when you crank the handle in the middle right of the picture, it goes up! Up, to the next level and where our review continues!

Next: Stay Tuned!
Back: Prologue & Build - Level 1

Lego 10188 Death Star

Prologue

My biggest set to date and it is a Lego Star Wars set Death Star. This set promises a long build time and plenty of enjoyment if one takes it slow and easy. This set is an Ultimate Collector's Series (UCS) and it stands at 3803 pieces. I personally feel that big sets are to be savoured and build slowly. Especially sets targeted towards adults, these sets have unique building techniques and play features which I do like to spend time admiring.

The set came double-boxed. The outer one is a plain brown box and the inner one is the one which you see displayed in stores. Usually Lego separates the set by numbered polybags but since this set is so huge, it comes in numbered white boxes instead. The instruction manual is a bit special too. Instead of a stapled one, it comes in a ring binder format which makes sense naturally, since the booklet is so thick.

The start of the build begins with a great thing which was assembling all the minifigures for the set from bag 1. At that point, it did not include the droids and the Trash Compactor Monster (Dianoga). The whole ensemble is fantastic even as it is and this groupie shot shows the whole cast and genuinely was so very cool. At the time of its release this set had the most number of minifigures.

Build - Level 1

The start of the build begins at the base. In order to make sure someone could still move the set without toppling it from static friction the designers had placed a copious amount of studs to the base.

I guess because the lowest level had no play features, you can see that they made it very low, probably to save on the bricks.

One thing I have to say is that although I do not particularly like stickers, I did like the light panel ones. They made the set look more hi-tech and all.

In the next part of the review we will then look at the next level where all the heavy serious building starts and all the wonderful play features start to appear as well.



Next: Build - Level 2